efforts

It’s been called an “epidemic” of loneliness and isolation. The “bowling alone” phenomenon.

By any name, it refers to Americans’ growing social disconnection by many measures.

Americans are less likely to join civic groups, unions and churches than in recent generations. They have fewer friends, are less trusting of each other and less likely to hang out in a local bar or coffee shop, recent polling indicates. Given all that, it’s not surprising that many feel lonely or isolated much of the time.

Such trends form the backdrop to this Associated Press report on small groups working to restore community connections.

They include a ministry pursuing “trauma-informed community development” in Pittsburgh; a cooperative helping small farmers and their communities in Kentucky; an “intentional” community of Baltimore neighbors; and organizations seeking to restore neighborhoods and neighborliness in Akron, Ohio.

Loneliness and its health risks

In 2023, then Surgeon General Vivek Murthy reported on an “ epidemic of loneliness and isolation,” similar to his predecessors’ advisories on smoking and obesity.

Isolation and loneliness aren’t identical — isolation is being socially disconnected, loneliness the distress of lacking human connection. One can be alone but not lonely, or lonely in a crowd.

But overall, isolation and loneliness are “risk factors for several major health conditions, including cardiovascular disease, dementia, depression, and premature mortality,” the report said.

Murthy says he’s encouraged by groups working toward social connection through local initiatives ranging from potluck dinners to service projects. His new Together Project, supported by the Knight Foundation, aims to support such efforts.

“What we have to do now is accelerate that movement,” he said.

The pandemic temporarily exacerbated social isolation. There’s been some rebound, but often not back to where it was before.

Scholars and activists have cited various potential causes — and effects — of disconnection. They range from worsening political polarization to destructive economic forces to rat-race schedules to pervasive social media.

Murthy said for many users, social media has become an endless scroll of performance, provocation and unattainably perfect body types.

“What began perhaps as an effort to build community has rapidly transformed into something that I worry is actually now actively contributing to loneliness,” he said.

Bowling alone, more than ever

Harvard’s Robert Putnam, 25 years ago, described the decline in civic engagement in a widely cited 2000 book “Bowling Alone.” It was so named because the decline even affected bowling leagues. The bowling wasn’t the point. It was people spending time together regularly, making friends, finding romantic partners, helping each other in times of need.

Memberships in many organizations — including service, veterans, scouting, fraternal, religious, parental and civic — have continued their long decline into the 21st century, according to a follow-up analysis in “The Upswing,” a 2020 book by Putnam and Shaylyn Romney Garrett.

While some organizations have grown in recent years, the authors argue that member participation often tend to be looser — making a contribution, getting a newsletter — than the more intensive groups of the past, with their regular meetings and activities.

A reaction against institutions

Certainly, some forms of social bonds have earned their mistrust. People have been betrayed by organizations, families and religious groups, which can be harshest on their dissenters.

But disconnection has its own costs.

“There’s been such a drive for personal autonomy, but I think we’ve moved so far past wanting not to have any limits on what we can do, what we can believe, that we’ve become allergic to institutions,” said Daniel Cox, the director of the Survey Center on American Life and a senior fellow in polling and public opinion at the American Enterprise Institute.

“I’m hoping we’re beginning to recognize that unbounded personal autonomy does not make us happier and creates a wealth of social problems,” said Cox, co-author of the 2024 report “ Disconnected: The Growing Class Divide in American Civic Life.”

By the numbers

1. About 16% of adults, including around one-quarter of adults under 30, report feeling lonely or isolated all or most of the time, according to a 2024 survey by the Pew Research Center.

2. Just under half of Americans belonged to a religious congregation in 2023, a low point for Gallup, which has tracking this trend since 1937.

3. About 10% of workers are in a union, down from 20% four decades ago, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports.

4. Around half of Americans regularly spent time in a public space in their community in 2025, such as a coffee shop, bar, restaurant or park. That’s down from around two-thirds in 2019, according to “America’s Cultural Crossroads,” another study by the Survey Center on American Life.

5. About two in 10 U.S. adults have no close friends outside of family, according to the “Disconnected” report. In 1990, only 3% said that, according to Gallup. About one-quarter of adults have at least six close friends, down from nearly half in 1990.

6. About 4 in 10 Americans have at most one person they could depend on to lend them $200, offer a place to stay or help find a job, according to “Disconnected.”

7. About one-quarter of Americans say most people can be trusted — down from about half in 1972, according to the General Social Survey.

Exceptions and a stark class divide

Some argue that Putnam and others are using too limited a measurement — that people are finding new ways of connecting to replace the old ones, whether online or other newer forms of networking.

Still, many numbers depict an overall decline in connection.

This hits hardest on those who are already struggling — who could most use a friend, a job referral or a casserole at the door in hard times.

Those with lower educations, which generally translates to lower incomes, tend to report having fewer close friends, fewer civic gathering places in their communities and fewer people who could help out in a pinch, according to “Disconnected.”

Responses to the crisis

Across the country, small organizations and informal groups of people have worked to build community, whether through formal programs or less structured events like potluck dinners.

Murthy will continue to be visiting such local groups in his “Together Project,” supporting such efforts.

Another group, Weave: The Social Fabric Project at the Aspen Institute, has a searchable database of volunteer opportunities and an online forum for connecting community builders, which it calls “weavers.” It aims to support and train them in community-building skills.

“Where people are trusting less, where people are getting to know each other less, where people are joining groups less, there are people still in every community who have decided that it’s up to them to bring people together,” said its executive director, Frederick J. Riley.

Smith writes for the Associated Press.

The United States has imposed visa bans on five Europeans, including a former European Union commissioner, accusing them of pressuring tech firms to censor and suppress “American viewpoints they oppose”.

In a statement on Tuesday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio characterised the individuals as “radical activists” who had “advanced censorship crackdowns” by foreign states against “American speakers and American companies”.

“For far too long, ideologues in Europe have led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to punish American viewpoints they oppose,” he said on X.

“The Trump Administration will no longer tolerate these egregious acts of extraterritorial censorship,” he added.

The most prominent target was Thierry Breton, who served as the European commissioner for the internal market from 2019-2024.

Sarah Rogers, the undersecretary for public diplomacy, described the French businessman as the “mastermind” of the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), a landmark law intended to combat ​hateful speech, misinformation and disinformation on online platforms.

Rogers also accused Breton of using the DSA to threaten Elon Musk, the owner of X and a close ally of US President Donald Trump, ahead of an interview Musk conducted with Trump during last year’s presidential campaign.

‘Witch hunt’

Breton responded to the visa ban in a post on X, slamming it as a “witch hunt” and comparing the situation with the US’s McCarthy era, when officials were chased out of government for alleged ties to communism.

“To our American friends: Censorship isn’t where you think it is,” he added.

The others named by Rogers are: Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the Centre for Countering Digital Hate; Josephine Ballon and Anna-Lena von Hodenberg, leaders of HateAid, a German organisation, and Clare Melford, who runs the Global Disinformation Index (GDI).

French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Noel Barrot “strongly” condemned the visa restrictions, stating that the EU “cannot let the rules governing their digital space be imposed by others upon them”. He stressed that the DSA was “democratically adopted in Europe” and that “it has absolutely no extraterritorial reach and in no way affects the United States”.

Ballon and von Holdenberg of HateAid described the visa bans as an attempt to obstruct the enforcement of European law on US corporations operating in Europe.

“We will not be ‌intimidated by a government that uses accusations of censorship to silence those who stand ⁠up for human rights and freedom of expression,” they said in a statement.

A spokesperson for the GDI also called the US action “immoral, unlawful, and un-American”, as well as “an authoritarian attack on free speech and an egregious act of government censorship”.

The punitive measures follow the Trump administration’s publishing of a National Security Strategy, which accused European leaders of censoring free speech and suppressing opposition to immigration policies that it said risk “civilisational erasure” for the continent.

The DSA in particular has emerged as a flashpoint in US-EU relations, with US conservatives decrying it as a weapon of censorship against right-wing thought in Europe and beyond, an accusation Brussels denies.

The legislation requires major platforms to explain content-moderation decisions, provide transparency for users and grant researchers access to study issues such as children’s exposure to dangerous content.

Tensions escalated further this month after the EU fined Musk’s X for violating DSA rules on transparency in advertising and its methods for ensuring users were verified and actual people.

Washington last week signalled that key European businesses – including Accenture, DHL, Mistral, Siemens and Spotify – could be targeted in response.

The US has also attacked the United Kingdom’s Online Safety Act, which imposes similar content moderation requirements on major social media platforms.

The White House last week suspended the implementation of a tech cooperation deal with the UK, saying it was in opposition to the UK’s tech rules.

After steadily gaining power and influence for more than a decade, the watchdogs that provide civilian oversight of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department face an uncertain future.

A recent leadership exodus has left behind gaps in experience and knowledge, and a succession of legal challenges and funding cuts by the county have left some concerned that long-fought gains in transparency are slipping away.

“It is beginning to look like the idea of effective oversight of the Sheriff’s Department is a pipe dream,” said Robert Bonner, former chairman of the Civilian Oversight Commission, who announced in June that he was being pushed into “involuntarily leaving” before he completed pending work.

Current and former oversight officials have argued that the office of county counsel, the Board of Supervisors and the Sheriff’s Department have repeatedly undermined efforts to rein in law enforcement misconduct.

The cumulative effect, some advocates worry, is that the public will know less about law enforcement activity, and that there will be fewer independent investigations into deputies and department leaders alike.

“The Sheriff is committed to transparency in law enforcement,” the department said via email. “As we move forward it is essential to strengthen collaboration with the [Civilian Oversight Commission] while ensuring that the rights and safety of our personnel are protected.”

In recent years, oversight bodies have uncovered information about so-called deputy gangs, published reports on inhumane jail conditions and issued subpoenas for records related to on-duty use of force incidents.

Inspector General Max Huntsman’s sudden announcement last week that he was retiring from the position he’s held since its creation more than a decade ago completed a trifecta of departures of top law enforcement oversight officials this year.

In addition to Bonner’s departure, former Civilian Oversight Commission chairman Sean Kennedy stepped down from the body in February in response to what he described as improper county interference in the commission’s activities.

L.A. County Sheriff Robert Luna, right, talks with Sean Kennedy during an event on April 5 in Baker. Kennedy left his position on the Civilian Oversight Commission earlier this year.

(William Liang / For The Times)

Kennedy and others have said the Sheriff’s Department has refused to comply with multiple subpoenas by the commission for personnel files and records related to deputy misconduct.

“The attack on integrity and on oversight capacity is threatening all of us in Los Angeles County,” Hans Johnson, who took over as chairman of the Civilian Oversight Commission following Bonner’s departure, said at a recent public meeting. “We look forward to making sure that oversight is preserved and protected and not muzzled and not unplugged or sabotaged.”

The Executive Office of the Board of Supervisors said in a statement that it maintains a “long-standing commitment to strong oversight.”

The Sheriff’s Department said only one request it has received from oversight officials this year remains pending.

“The Department remains committed to working cooperatively to provide all requested information as required by law,” the statement said.

On the state level, reform advocates recently scored what they described as a victory for transparency.

In October, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill known as AB 847, which granted civilian oversight bodies across California the ability to view confidential law enforcement records in private sessions. L.A. County officials had previously balked at sharing certain sensitive files on sheriff’s deputies, and some reformers worry the new law may not go far enough.

Dara Williams, chief deputy of the Office of the Inspector General, said at a July public meeting that the Sheriff’s Department has a history of being “painfully slow” to respond to requests for records related to homicides by deputies. In one instance, she said, Huntsman’s office served the department with a subpoena in October 2024 “and we are still waiting for documents and answers.”

The Sheriff’s Department said it has hired an outside attorney who is “conducting an independent review” of its records to determine if “those materials actually exist and can be found.”

The department’s statement said it will abide by the law and that protecting confidential information “remains of the utmost importance.”

Some involved in oversight have also become the subject of probes themselves.

In June, the Office of the County Counsel said it was investigating Kennedy for alleged retaliation against a sergeant who had worked for a unit that had been accused of pursuing cases for political reasons during Sheriff Alex Villanueva’s tenure.

Kennedy has denied the allegations, telling The Times in June, “I was just doing my job as an oversight official.”

Budget cuts — some already instituted, others threatened — are also a concern.

Huntsman said earlier this year that the Executive Office of the Board of Supervisors was reassigning or eliminating a third of his staff.

Former L.A. County Inspector General Max Huntsman listens during a hearing at Loyola Law School’s Advocacy Center on Jan. 12, 2024.

(Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

He too left amid acrimony with county officials.

“The County has made it very clear over the past couple of years that they are not going to enforce the state oversight laws,” Huntsman told The Times. “Instead the county supports the sheriff limiting the flow of information so as to restrict meaningful oversight.”

The Executive Office of the Board of Supervisors said the changes implemented this year have had a “minimal” impact that “neither limits OIG’s responsibility nor their capacity.”

The possibility of eliminating the Sybil Brand Commission, which monitors L.A. County jails, was discussed in an August report to the Board of Supervisors. County officials said it would save about $40,000 annually.

Sybil Brand commissioner Eric Miller told The Times in September that he believes “the county is attempting to limit oversight of the Sheriff’s Department … to avoid lawsuits.” The department, he said, “is a powerful constituency within the county.”

In September, California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta launched a state lawsuit over what he described as a “humanitarian crisis” inside L.A. County jails.

There are even concerns that the Sheriff’s Department is seeking greater control over local groups that facilitate conversations between deputies and members of the public — often some of the only opportunities for community concerns to be heard.

In the Antelope Valley, the Palmdale Sheriff’s Station Community Advisory Committee has been roiled by allegations that a local Sheriff’s Department captain appointed a new member without other members’ approval.

The chair of the committee, Georgia Halliman, resigned in October and committee member Sylvia Williams has alleged that the Sheriff’s Department captain tried to force her out.

“I was going to leave, but they need someone who’s real in there,” Williams told The Times. “You have to have an overseer.”

The department said it is reviewing the situation.

Melissa Camacho, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU of Southern California, said the county is at a crossroads.

“The main question right now is what is the county going to do?” she said. “Is this going to be a moment when the Board of Supervisors decides to actually invest in oversight?”

This week is shaping up to be crucial for the European Union’s policy on Ukraine. EU foreign ministers met in Brussels on Monday; EU heads of state will gather on Thursday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is meeting United States envoy Steve Witkoff. At the top of the agenda is the peace plan put forward by US President Donald Trump and continuing funding for Ukraine’s war effort.

The European strategy so far has been to alter the US-proposed peace plan in such a way that it becomes completely unacceptable to Russia. This, as European leaders hope, will reinforce the core narrative emanating from their capitals over the past two months – that Russian President Vladimir Putin is just playing games and doesn’t really want peace.

The idea behind it is to try to sway Trump to their side and have him apply additional military and economic pressure on the Kremlin rather than pressing Ukraine into signing an unsavoury peace deal right away. But this effort could easily backfire.

The main practical issue with regards to Ukraine’s capacity to withstand Russian aggression during 2026 is who is going to fund its army as well as its state and social welfare system. Trump proudly states that the US is no longer financing Ukraine’s war effort because, in his parlance, it is “Biden’s war” – ie, his predecessor Joe Biden is to blame.

The burden of funding is now squarely on Europe – the EU and rich non-EU countries, such as the United Kingdom and Norway. The US keeps providing weapons to Ukraine, but these are being paid for with money from European coffers. US intelligence support, crucial in Ukraine’s war planning, is currently available to Kyiv for free.

European leaders have been vocal and aggressive throughout the year in rejecting any realistic compromise that could end the war. But even as 2025 is ending, there is no clarity as to how they are going to back up their jingoistic rhetoric with sufficient funding that would allow Ukraine not just to stay afloat but tip the balance in the conflict in its favour.

Their plan A is what they call the reparations loan. It envisages using the assets of the Russian Central Bank frozen by European banks to fund the Ukrainian defence. This means that rather than spending the money on actual reparations – as in Ukraine’s post-war restoration – it would be spent on the war itself.

The thinking behind this plan is that once Russia suffers a strategic defeat, it would retroactively agree to the confiscation rather than demand its money back, so European governments would not have to reach into their coffers to return the money to the Russians.

The obvious problem here is that exactly nobody – except war cheerleaders who have been promising Russia’s defeat for the past four years – believes this outcome is even remotely realistic. Belgium, which holds the bulk of these assets, is equally sceptical, which is why it opposes this plan. It has been joined by a growing number of EU states, including the Czech Republic and Italy.

The other big problem is that Trump’s peace plan has radically different designs for the assets in question. It envisages using them as actual reparations, as in spending them on restoring Ukraine’s economy. Most crucially, Moscow has on numerous occasions signalled that it agrees with this part of the plan. It considers the money lost and wants to make sure neighbouring Ukraine does not turn into a failed state.

This means that if the reparations loan plan goes ahead, it would undermine the most attractive provision of Trump’s plan. If this happens, the US and the EU may find themselves more at odds with each other than they already are, and that would hardly sway Trump.

His administration has indicated on a number of occasions that it could walk out of the peace process if it is derailed, which means ending any help to Ukraine, be it with weapons or intelligence.

The reparations loan plan also comes with an enormous risk for the European economy. The confiscation of Russian assets would discourage any central bank in the world from keeping its money in Europe, meaning the European banking system stands to lose.

More importantly, this move cannot guarantee that Ukraine would be able to stop Russia’s slow but steady advancement. Securing funding for another year under the current circumstances basically means that more Ukrainian lives and territory will be lost in 2026.

This money cannot in effect counter the biggest threat to Ukraine and its neighbours right now: that of Russia precipitating a humanitarian catastrophe that could spill over into the region by devastating Ukraine’s energy infrastructure this winter. The latest blackout in Odesa when the whole city was left without water and heating in the middle of winter is a dark prelude of things to come.

All this warrants the question of why European leaders are acting the way they are now. Could their irrational radicalism be explained by their extensive political investment in delusional outcomes of this war that they have been selling to voters for the past four years? Or are they engaging in incessant moral posturing so as to avoid being scapegoated for the real outcome of the war?

There is probably a bit of both. But there is perhaps also an even more sinister motive, recently expressed by Wolfgang Ischinger, chairman of the Munich Security Conference: the idea that “as long as this war is being fought, … Europe is safe because the Ukrainians have successfully tied down this mighty Russian army.” In other words, there are some within the European political elite who perceive ending the war as being against European interests.

But regardless of what those on top think or are motivated by, the war fatigue in Europe is real. The rise of pro-Russia far-right groups in Germany and elsewhere, capitalising on the ruling elites’ shining ineptitude in handling the conflict with Russia, is a clear sign of that.

If the reparations loan scheme does not pass this week, the EU would have to go to plan B, which envisages loaning money from the EU budget. That, of course, would be met with fierce opposition from the European public.

The failure to secure funding for Ukraine may be seen as an embarrassing failure in Europe, but it would make things easier for Zelenskyy. With his administration losing popularity amid continuing military upsets and a major corruption scandal, Ukraine’s president is well on his way to becoming the chief scapegoat in this debacle.

But no more funding from Europe would allow him to declare that the West has betrayed Ukraine and proceed with the inevitable: accepting an unsavoury peace largely on Russia’s terms.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.